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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25727131">Like an Explosion of Color</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CongressIsAliens/pseuds/CongressIsAliens'>CongressIsAliens</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The World Is Shit, Let’s Write Fic [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Phineas and Ferb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(sorta) - Freeform, Character Study, Fireworks, Gen, Human Perry the Platypus (Phineas and Ferb), POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vignette</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:48:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25727131</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CongressIsAliens/pseuds/CongressIsAliens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't so bad on the fourth of July and New Year's Eve. At least then you know what's coming. </p>
<p>(A vignette on fireworks and surprises)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The World Is Shit, Let’s Write Fic [16]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668385</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Like an Explosion of Color</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>it's 3 AM and I'm disassociating so have this</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When you were young, you loved the fireworks. </p>
<p>You used to love the way bursts of color would light up the night sky on a random June night. You'd rush to your window, press your nose to the glass, wait in anticipation of a few more sparks. </p>
<p>Usually, there'd be a few more. More explosions of color, painting the night sky in brief flashes of light. The colors, green and red and blue, melting into showers of golden sparks. </p>
<p>But your favorite part was always the sound, a great ka-boom fading into a crackle. Always accompanied by laughter and gleeful shouts, the noise of drunken men shooting off explosives just because they could. </p>
<p>That was before. Before you became an agent. </p>
<p>Now, every blast means something different. The smaller ones, the ones that only make noise, they no longer sound of summer evenings throwing poppers against the pavement. Now, they sound like gunfire. Like terse exchanges of lead in empty warehouses, with nothing but the hat on your head and the pistol in your hand. </p>
<p>The larger ones, the booms and crackles that make crowds ooh and ah, sound of -inators exploding. The bits not obliterated crackling with flames, licking at metal, wiring, and if you're not careful enough, flesh.</p>
<p>They drag you back to your days as a junior agent, yanking your best friends out of the wreckage of another evil scheme. Praying they'd survive, begging to every deity you knew that they'd hang on. </p>
<p>They never did. </p>
<p>Being an agent has ruined so many things. </p>
<p>You can't sleep right. You've always got to have one eye open. When the sandman does fully claim your body, rare as that is, he enters with the monsters that creep around your dreams. The twisted forms of your family, calling out for you to save them. Screams and shots and the wailing of a widow. </p>
<p>And when someone tries to wake you, years of training has you lashing out the instant your brain allows your body to move. Frequently, that happens before you even know what you're doing. </p>
<p>Ferb tried to wake you up once. You're just glad he ended up with only a few bruises. After that, you never let yourself fall asleep around the kids again. What if you hurt them even worse? </p>
<p>Everybody's wary around you now. You're always on guard, always waiting for the worst, so they are too. It's happened before, in places thought to be secure, why not again? Why not here, why not now? You've got to be prepared. </p>
<p>Nobody tries to scare you or surprise you. The "made-you-flinch" games you remember from your childhood are never to be seen in the Flynn-Fletcher household. Surprise parties will never happen. </p>
<p>It's a deadly combination, these things. All culminating in the destruction of your favorite childhood experience, being woken up in the dead of night by a spontaneous explosion of color in the night sky. </p>
<p>You used to love it, now you panic. You can't remember where you are. You can't snap out of it. All you know when the fireworks go off is <em>mission </em>and <em>protect. Fight</em> or <em>flight</em>. The panic and desperation of a mission gone wrong. </p>
<p>By the time the haze over your mind clears, the smoke of the firework is long gone, leaving behind naught but the echoes of terror.</p>
<p>Yes, being an agent has ruined so much for you. Much more than it should have. </p>
<p>You anticipated sneaking around, never knowing true trust. You anticipated the overworking, barely able to see your own family. Hell, you even anticipated the nightmares.</p>
<p>But you never anticipated <em>this</em>. Warm nights in early July, curled up underneath blankets but still shivering in fear. Dread and anticipation curling in your gut. What are you going to do now? Are you going to scream? Freeze? Hurt someone else?</p>
<p>These are the questions you ask yourself. Every time, the answer is different.</p>
<p>When you were young, you loved the fireworks. </p>
<p>For all the reasons you hate them now. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am once again listening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL-ibhD36gE">Gently Blows the Summer Wind</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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